


Lampbound

by Dott



Category: Monster High
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 16:45:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6337165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dott/pseuds/Dott
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Howleen makes the wish, it's only you in the lantern at first. Then your ghoulfriends, then the entire student body. But there has to be a way out, right? There's always a way out.</p><p>~~~</p><p>AU where Whisp has the common sense to lock her bedroom door after Clawdeen is thrown in the lamp, preventing them from reaching the 12th mirror shard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lampbound

It’s only you at first. 

You’re dumped in the middle of a vast desert, with only palm trees, dunes and a speck of a castle on the horizon. You decide quickly that staying in this heat sounds lethal (you don’t know why it’s so unbearably hot, there isn’t even a sun visible), so you start towards the castle, which is essentially your only option.

Somehow, walking there doesn’t seem as slow as it should. Probably the magic of the lamp helping you along. Soon you’re in the palace, combing through the rooms for what seems like hours, looking desperately for help. You figure this must be where Gigi lives, and it's absolutely gorgeous, but somehow, neither of these thoughts are very comforting.

Every so often, you’ll hear a breathy, evil laugh over your shoulder, but when you turn around, nothing is there.

Eventually, Frankie, Draculaura, and Ghoulia find you, and you feel a wave of relief. Abbey and that new ghoul (you think her name was Cleo?) show up shortly after. You’re confident now. There’s nothing you and your ghouls can’t do when you’re together.

Frankie mentions something about finding mirror shards, explaining Grimm’s mirror, and you all set out to find them. It takes a lot of work and running around, but eventually, you all manage to round up 11 of the 12 that are in the castle using the map (after Ghoulia figures out you’ve been using the wrong side, of course. you can’t believe you didn’t notice).

But there’s one room the map leads to that won’t open. No matter what you and your friends do, the door won’t budge; not even Abbey could break it down. Everyone tries everything they can think of, even walking around to find an alternative route in, but this is the only door, and the room is in the center of the castle so there’s no windows to sneak in.

The thought crosses your mind that you’re all trapped here, but you dismiss it. You can't panic now. Clawdeen Wolf does not give up hope so easily.

After everyone agrees to walk through the halls to try and find a solution, you run into Lagoona and Gil. She is still a cyan blue that hurts the eyes, gripping his arm and smiling like the Joker, and he looks uneasy at the fact his ghoulfriend is still freshwater-brainwashed. Apparently being in the lamp doesn’t nullify the wishes. There’s no telling what these two did to end up in here.

Eventually, everyone is exhausted. It’s been a full day of searching, and the worry on everyone’s faces is visible; some look anxious, some look angry, and Cleo is the only one whose face is blank. She’s been acting weird ever since she started school today. It’s kinda freaking you out, but you can’t really blame her, considering everything that’s happened on her very first day.

So you all spend the night in the palace, in a seemingly endless room Draculaura found that's filled ceiling-high with beds. It could house an army if it needed to.

The next day is just as unsuccessful. The only new development is the arrival of more students; Deuce, who said Howleen banished him after he told her she needed to stop treating everyone like this, as well as Heath, Manny, and your brother, all three covered in cuts and bruises. You told them that show was stupid, but they didn’t listen.

Howleen couldn’t have that many wishes left if she used at least two to send the boys and Lagoona here. You tell yourself she’ll come to her senses before the final wish, that Twyla will make her see, but your stomach drops anyway.

After another sleep, there’s even more of your fellow students here; in fact, it seems like she just went ahead and banished the entire student population. The only other time the student body is in a group this large is during pep rallies and casketball games.

It becomes a madhouse in the palace, with everyone panicking, crying on the floor, discussing their escapes, et cetera. You almost feel like sitting down and crying with them but you think about Howleen and how she needs someone to save her, and you’re filled with hatred towards Whisp. You know if your parents were here right now, they’d tell you to be the better monster and not let something like hate consume you, but it’s looking like a reasonable option at the moment.

Ghoulia, Jackson, and some of the more bookish monsters have taken up camp in the library, flipping through the infinite supply of books on the endless shelves to see if there’s a solution to this emergency. You and the ghouls take another look at the door to the sealed room to see if there’s a lock, but it’s just solid wood, probably sealed with magic. It’s hard to admit, but Whisp is incredibly smart.

Days turn into weeks. Everyone has uneasily settled into a routine; wake up, search the palace yet again, find nothing, try and comfort each other, go to bed. Nobody seems to need to eat or drink anymore, and sleeping is just something everyone does to get away from the lamp for a while.

Whisp has started taunting you and your friends through her shard of the mirror. It makes your blood boil, but you can’t let her get to you. But she’s always there, always watching, you never know when she’ll pop up. You hate it. Everyone hates it. Everyone hates her.

Weeks turn into months. You still try and tell yourself maybe it’s not over, maybe one day you’ll see your little sister again. You seek comfort in your friends, and they do the same with you, but you still feel empty; you assume they all feel this way, too. How could they not?

After a while, Twyla shows up at the palace, her arms crossed and her head hanging low; she was the only one of you who was left. You meet eyes with her, and you both automatically walk towards each other, wrapping each other into a hug and falling to your knees. You both sob for Howleen. You both know she’s gone.

It could be worse. You could be stuck in here without everyone. You love them all with every piece of your heart, even if some of them get on your last nerve at times, and you’re even starting to warm up to Cleo.

The palace is huge, and you haven’t even seen all of it yourself yet. One of the only things to do for fun anymore is to just walk in a random direction and see where it takes you. There’s more rooms than you could ever imagine; a swimming pool, an arcade, one full of mirrors for some reason.  There’s also some other little games the others have come up with to pass time. For example, your brother and his friends have started racing on the magic carpets they found in one room, but that seems like a stupid idea to you, especially considering what they went through for that TV show. 

The building feels empty, though. And the alternative is walking in the hot desert, which is something you do on the days when you’re feeling especially defeated. Might as well take suffering up a notch. How far can you push yourself? It’s a game. The desert loops back around to the palace after about an hour of walking (Cleo was actually the one who found this out. you don’t bring up the fact that one day she just set off into the desert because you think you kind of know why, and you think it’d be insensitive to say anything since there’s nothing to be done), so if you reach the palace again, sometimes you just turn around and go back the other way, just to walk some more.

Time doesn’t have meaning anymore. You don’t know if you’ve been in there years or decades or centuries or what. After all this time, Whisp still finds new and original ways to belittle every single monster in the palace. She makes you and Clawd look at Howleen sometimes, and it makes you nauseous seeing her like that; sitting in that throne like a puppet. How long has she been there?

You catch glimpses of the shadow versions of you and your friends behind Whisp and Howleen sometimes. They always, no matter what, have that sickening, twisted grin on their face, every single one of them. When you happen to see these shadows, you have to go find whoever the real monster is in the palace and remind yourself they’re here and they’re with you.

You and your friends fall into a resigned state of just… existing. 

Ghoulia has stopped looking in the library for answers and now, instead, looks for works of fiction to take her mind somewhere far away. 

Frankie has tried to keep everyone’s spirits up (she was always the sweetest), but even though she’s still giving her friends supportive smiles, you can see the spark in her eye is diminishing. 

Lagoona is still freshwater-crazy, and Gil has tried multiple times to help her, but it’s no use. The only thing that might break the wish is getting out of the lantern.

You can only imagine what havoc Whisp has wreaked on the outside world if this is what she does on such a small scale.

“It could be worse,” you think to yourself sometimes when you’re trying to fall asleep. You don’t even know what’s day and what’s night, because the sky never changes. “It could be worse.”

It really couldn’t.


End file.
